Station Back to Six-Member Operations

The newest members of Expedition 32, who arrived Tuesday morning, are familiarizing themselves with station systems. The entire six-member Expedition 32 crew also is busy conducting maintenance and science while preparing for the arrival of Japan’s third cargo vehicle.

New Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide spent some time reviewing the station’s exercise equipment. However, most of his day was spent on robotics training for the arrival of Japan’s HTV cargo vehicle, Kounotori3, due to launch Friday at 10:06 p.m. EDT.

Flight Engineer Joe Acaba joined Hoshide on the robotics training. Kounotori3 is scheduled to arrive at the station July 27 when it will be grappled with the Canadarm2 and berthed to the Harmony node.

Acaba also powered up the ham radios in the Columbus laboratory and the Zvezda service module. He later demonstrated Treadmill-2, also known as COLBERT, operations to Hoshide and Flight Engineer Suni Williams.

Williams worked on two ongoing science experiments. For the InSPACE-3 experiment, Wednesday’s objective was to restore an even distribution of particles inside a fluid. Benefits include the production of smarter and stronger materials. She also reviewed operations for the BASS experiment, or Burning and Suppressions of Solids.

Flight Engineer Sergei Revin worked on two Russian experiments. The Relaksatia experiment observes jet exhaust in the Earth’s atmosphere as well as exhaust from the International Space Station. He also studied potential ways to detect a pressure loss in the station for the Bar experiment.